


A Snowball's Chance in Hoth

by the-reylo-void (Anysia)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Ben isn't very good at being Ben yet, F/M, Friendship, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Redemption, Rey does not tolerate his bs, Snowball Fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 14:03:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5747185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anysia/pseuds/the-reylo-void
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're ridiculous, the two of them, but even if Ben's not very good at being Ben and Rey's not very sure who or what he is anymore, somehow it works.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Snowball's Chance in Hoth

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr prompt: "snowball fight at Hoth". I love the idea of Ben ultimately coming back to the Light through saving Rey, though I headcanon him as being very lost and confused afterwards. This is a brief interlude within that imagined narrative (which I may expand on at some point).

Snow is still a very new thing to Rey, born of heat and desert winds as she is, and she shivers, huddles into the gathered fur of her hood and turns her face to the sky.

 

It’s so very _grey_  on Hoth, so often. Snow dusts her cheeks and eyelashes like moths’ wings, cold whispers but somehow soft, comforting. It’s peaceful, in its own way, and she savors the moment of quiet, away from the still-weighty expectations of Luke and Leia a quarter-mile behind her, back at base, kneels down and trails her fingers through the snow.

 

She feels him before she sees him, still shadow-dark and stooped against the rolling stretches of white. His arms are crossed tightly over his chest as he stares out, wind and snow whipping his hair from where it’s grown to curl past his jawline.

 

 _Ben_ , she thinks, rising up to her full height, turning to face him even as he stands several paces off, and he nods but doesn’t meet her gaze.

 

It’s still new to him, she knows.

 

Being here.

 

Being Ben.

 

In the last moments, as Snoke’s oily laugh had faded into a wheezing, rattling cough, Kylo Ren’s blade beside hers, hilted deep in the dark lord’s chest, Rey had sworn she’d seen the Force ripple around the man at her side, seen darkness part and shift and _fade_.

 

When it was quiet, when the only sound in the darkened chamber was the harsh counterpoint of their breathing, the slow drip of blood, he’d stared at her, open, longing, wondrous, and there was light in his eyes.

 

So very much light.

 

Rey had taken the flickering red blade from his hand, slowly, carefully, her fingers brushing his, as they laid Kylo Ren to rest beside his master, together.

 

Weeks now since she’d brought him home, this sulking, lost creature.

 

No one at the Resistance base quite knows what to do with him. He’s Kylo Ren and not, wears the face of a boy who died fifteen years ago.

 

Sometimes Rey finds him in sleep, lets the tendrils of their unwitting bond brush against his consciousness, and it’s pity more than anything.

 

 _Compassion_ , Luke corrects her, once, and she doesn’t know how to respond. Doesn’t know how to quantify what she feels for this creature who isn’t quite, who had killed and broken so much, so many but raised his blade against his master in the end for her, refused to see her destroyed as he had been.

 

She doesn’t know what he is. Who.

 

“Neither do I,” she hears from beside her, low and deep on the winter wind, and she sighs, tucks her hands into her pockets.

 

“Stop reading my mind,” Rey grumbles, moving to stand behind him, shielding her eyes against the brightness of the snow with one hand as they stare out to the horizon.

 

“Make it harder for me, then.” He’s not smiling.

 

“No one says you _have_ to listen,” Rey points out.

 

Kylo — _Ben_ , she reminds herself, and it doesn’t quite fit him but nothing seems to anymore — grimaces a little, glancing sidelong at her. “You make it impossible not to. You’re like… a beacon. If I could shut you out, I would have done it already.”

 

Rey nods a little. “I’ve spoken to Luke about it. It’s… we can break it, but it’ll take time. Work.”

 

Ben shrugs, non-committal. “Easy enough if one of us dies,” he says, and he’s oddly calm. “I imagine that’s on the horizon for me, at least. I deserve nothing less.”

 

Rey rolls her eyes and takes a step away from him. “Sorry, I didn’t realize I’d interrupted your daily session of self-pity. Shall I leave you to it, then?”

 

Ben stares at her, placid and flat, and Rey sighs. So much work to do.

 

“There’s a security detail at base with blasters trained on me as we speak,” Ben begins, raising an eyebrow at Rey as she silently stoops down and shoves one mittened hand into the thick snow, “so there’s really no need for you to hang around like a lost…”

 

Rey shoves a handful of snow into his face. Hard.

 

Ben is stock-still, snow clinging to the ends of his hair, water slowly dripping over his brow as he stares at her. 

 

Rey feels utterly self-satisfied at how _ridiculous_ he looks until he twitches one finger and there’s a sudden Force-shove of snow down the back of her parka and she yelps in indignation, making a noise not unlike a wet kitten.

 

“Why you damn childish…” she curses, frantically scrabbling at the back of her neck and extracting packed handfuls of snow.

 

She levels a hard glare at Ben.

 

And he smiles at her.

 

 _Smiles_.

 

Just a little, a faint curve of his lips, but there’s so much _light_ in his eyes and his hair is wet and plastered to his forehead and her neck is _freezing_ and gods they’re both so ridiculous.

 

Ben’s smile fades into something distant but warm all at once, and he takes her hand, gingerly, as though it will burn him even through his gloves.

 

“…thank you,” he says, very quietly.

 

The snow continues to fall around them, soft, silent, as Rey squeezes his hand in hers.


End file.
